George Galloway is the bookies’ favourite to win the Rochdale byelection, as odds are 4/7 the Workers Party of Britain will secure the seat.
A win in the town would propel Mr Galloway back into the House of Commons almost nine years after Labour’s Naz Shah reversed the Scot’s 10,000 majority in Bradford West at the 2015 general election.
Voters go to the polls in the Rochdale byelection on February 29, with the result now hugely uncertain after Labour’s decision to drop support for its candidate Azhar Ali. Sir Keir Starmer‘s party now finds itself without a candidate.
Mr Ali apologised after he was recorded in a meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party suggesting Israel had taken the October 7 Hamas assault as a pretext to invade Gaza.
But Labour moved to end its backing of the candidate after the Daily Mail reported he had blamed “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for fuelling criticism of a pro-Palestinian MP.
Mr Galloway told the Daily Mail the situation in Gaza is the most important issue for at least 40,000 people in Rochdale. About 20 percent of the electorate and 30 percent of the population of the town are of an Asian background.
Asked about the town’s remaining voting population, he told the same publication: “We have lots of other things we are planning to do.”
A former Labour MP himself, Mr Galloway has taken two seats from the party in the past: Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 with his Respect Party and Bradford West in 2012.
Some commentators suggest if the Workers Party of Britain fields more candidates in the next General Election, then the party poses a similar threat to Labour as that of Reform UK’s to the Tories.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has today (February 17) called on British conservatives to “come together” after bruising by-election defeats in Wellingborough and Kingswood.
The losses to Labour and an emboldened Reform UK party came as a twin blow to the PM, with the results the latest in a series of by-election defeats for Mr Sunak.
The results mean the Conservative Government has endured more by-election losses than any administration since the 1960s, surpassing the eight defeats suffered by John Major in the run-up to Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.
Richard Tice’s Reform party scored more than 10 percent of the vote for the first time in a by-election, with deputy leader Ben Habib winning 13 percent in the heavily pro-Leave constituency of Wellingborough. Rupert Lowe, its candidate in Kingswood, won 10 percent.
The candidates in the Rochdale byelection are: Azhar Ali (independent), Paul Ellison (Conservative), Iain Donaldson (Lib Dems), Simon Danczuk (Reform UK), George Galloway (Workers Party of Britain), Rev. Mark Coleman (independent), Michael Howarth (independent), David Anthony Tully (independent), William Howarth (independent), Guy Otten (Greens) and Ravin Rodent Subortna (Official Monster Raving Loony Party).
